TJ Maxx
I wrote the other day about great places to find cheap clothing, and TJ Maxx was one of those places. In search of a suit for Meg, dress pants for Erin and a Sprom dress for Lena, the four of us ventured to cambridgeside for a day of shopping. In the middle of our shopping adventure, Lena read a blog post on Beantown Prepster that TJ Maxx had a new shipment of Lilly Pulitzer. Since Lena is obsessed, we rerouted there and she found at least two dozen pieces to try. Lena left with patterned pinapple bermudas, a pair of lime green capris and a sleeveless collared ralph lauren polo in a sky blue. She managed to snag all that in $120 – less than the bermuda’s wouldve cost on their own at full retail price!
I was a very good girl and only bought a set of 4 pairs of aerie undies leftover from vday, which were justified by my $5 coupon that i snagged for trying on a bra [of course in a C, since the whole world of cute bra makers refuses to make 32Ds. argh!]. So I managed to spend $6 on 4 pairs of underwear – not bad at all. At TJ Maxx I definitely was lacking the energy [and the financial means] to spend serious amounts of time digging. I did browse through the denim but all the Seven’s and True Religions I found either weren’t the style I was looking for or not at all in my size. I guess going on a Saturday evening isnt ideal for that type of thing. In wandering the store, Erin and I stumbled upon the bra section, in which I discovered a number of 32D Walcoal bras. I was in bra heaven. These bras normally retail at Nordstroms or Macys for anywhere from $60-$80, and my poor mom pays full price for them for me because she knows theyre the only bras that fit me well. So I found THREE of them for $13 each – $38 bucks for 3 bras when one normally costs me $60… absolutely no complaints there.
Meg found her suit at New York & Co for $80 which was an incredible deal, I had no idea but they apparently have a 25% AAA discount, pretty sweet. Lena did some damage at J Crew as well, all in their wonderful sale section, and Erin found a hot pink boyfriend cardigan for 25 with her 15% student discount – always key at J Crew. I toyed with getting these babies
but decided I’d wait til I hit up the outlets when I’m home in June. For now I’ve got my trusty reefs and my very last AE purchase:
They’re basically knock off Tory Burch, but I love them anyways, and I just absolutey cannot wait for flip flop weather to arrive!!
After our very successful shopping trip we hit up PF Changs for dinner, which is always delicious. And now it’s sunday afternoon, I’m back at home procrastinating doing my work by writing about fashion. What else is new?
success at claires
At 10;30 yesterday morning [after several snoozes of the alarm] Erin & I rushed to Cambridgeside to find me some jewelry for my Snowball ensemble. Of course I’d had such a hectic week that I waited til the absolute last minute, and I was meeting with a realtor at 1 to look for apartments for next year, so we definitely didn’t have much time. What I thought would be a painful trip took only a few minutes – we succeeded in finding me silver hoops & a great necklace at our first stop: Claires.
When I was 12, Claires was a goldmine. I’ve always had a jewelry fetish and my ears have been pierced since i was in kindergarten, and since Claires was in the local mall, I always had to stop in. I haven’t really been in the store in ages, but I figured theyd have basic fancy jewelry to look at. They had a bunch of black necklace choices, and since I wanted to wear silver hoops & black patent leather shoes, I chose the one in the pictures in my last post.
Of course since Claires has their buy 2 get 1 free deal on earrings i got two sizes of silver hoops & really cute dangly turquoise peace sign earrings 🙂
A quick stop into H&M led to an impulsive buy – a navy blue, white & turquoise argyle cardigan. It was 30% off of $30 so I ended up paying $21 but I’ve been looking for argyle forever, and the colors are perfect! What can I say, shopping really is my addiction.
the search for a black, patent leather belt
Apparently this week was my week for shopping adventures. I had a slightly hectic weekend, so they’re all getting posted now, but on Friday afternoon, my friends Jen, Briann & I went to Cambridgeside in search for a black patent leather belt. We didn’t think the task at hand would be so challenging, but we spent almost 4 hours perusing the mall trying to find what we each had in mind, and it turned out to be quite the challenge. I think what we found in the end was a pleasant surprise, although not what any of us had pictured.
Jen bought this dress at Express for a dance we have coming up, a gorgeous satin racerback that I’ve been staring at for weeks. The problem? Jen weighs 99 lbs, and shes an absolute stick. the dress fit well on her chest, but was baggy around the waist. It needed to be cinched somehow, so when she called me on Thursday afternoon from the fitting room asking my opinion, I told her she should pair it with a fun belt, and that we’d go shopping Friday to find one if she didn’t find one at Express or somewhere else in the Pru. She found one at the Ann Taylor there, but it was $50, and considering she only paid $35 for the dress, she decided that was a little out of her price range.Â
What I had in mind was something like this:
Of course, this belt is $3.50 at forever21.com, but there are no forever 21’s in this area, and to pay $6 for shipping when it isn’t even guaranteed to arrive for 10 days [the dance was in 8] isn’t worth the risk.
In the span of two hours we went into Express, New York & Co, Aldo, Aldo Accessories, Macy’s, H&M, Claires, Ann Taylor Loft, Arden B and Old Navy. Nothing. We saw a few that we liked, some out of our price range, most didn’t fit jen’s tiny tiny waist. We ended up in Macy’s sale section trying on other dresses, but of course after 20 dresses we only had 3 that we were iffy on, and the third had a broken zipper that Jen wasn’t willing to risk taking home. We even tried on some chain belts, but we decided that they clashed too much with the ruffles and defeated the purpose since they didnt cinch her waist enough.Â
Eventually, defeated and frustrated that all paths had failed, we wandered into Wet Seal. Although we’d tried on a skinny silver belt at Ann Taylor for $30, we hadn’t thought seriously about the silver until we saw the belt in Wet Seal. It was a bright, popping silver, wide enough to make a statement with a buckle that wasn’t too obnoxious. for $10.50, we had our winner.
passion for fashion 